How To Track Your Facebook Friends Locations on a Map

Facebook is the mostly used social network of current time. Having an online presence is as important as having an offline one these days; hence everyone tends to have an account with Facebook. Even though Facebook is providing people with lots of useful features to meet people and make friends, they don’t officially give up someone’s location to other Facebook users. Technology enthusiasts don’t sit dumb; some hackers have found ways to find out a Facebook friend’s location. The feature is probably an undocumented feature or most commonly known as ‘bug’ in Facebook’s security feature or maybe Facebook intentionally kept it that way. However, the point is – you can trace your friend’s location.

How do you track a Facebook Friend?

Facebook is not as innocent as you may think. Everything you share and everywhere you go – Facebook is aware of everything. The smartphone you carry sends the GPS data to the central server on a regular interval, also your check-ins contribute a lot. Even if a GPS tracking functionality is not available, tracking is possible verifying cellphone coordinates. However, Facebook uses that data for their own purposes – mostly advertising. Have you ever noticed how you only see the ads you only want to see on Facebook ads column? They would never be from some alien region; rather you would notice an ad from a shop maybe some blocks away from you.

This was made possible by Facebook’s location tracking capability. Your location is important, hence this stalker like attempt. But as a security concern, Facebook never discloses your exact location unless you choose to do so via check-ins. However, a student from Cambridge University has developed a Google Chrome extension named Marauder Map that shows your Facebook friends’ location on a real time map.

The name has been taken from Harry Potter stories, of course. HP fans have already been able to relate the map’s name to this world famous story book series, and the map almost performs like one from the fantasy.

Marauder’s Map in Google Chrome

In the Chrome Extensions marketplace, you are supposed to find the extension. Download and install like every other extension and it would integrate with your browser. You may need to provide permission to the extension to gain access to your Facebook account. To us, the settings didn’t look like a security threat to us. But you should still check the privacy and security settings if you think it’s bothering you.

Later on, when you open Marauder’s Map extension, you can see your friend’s name bubbles on a map showing where your friends are. The map may not show real time movements like a real Marauder’s map, but the feature will be similar.

Download

Hide yourself from Location Reveal

If you think you don’t want to let people know about your location, simple choose not to display your location on Messenger. The extension basically takes the location from the messenger data, thus stopping the messenger location tracking would hide you from Marauder’s map – mostly like Harry wearing his invisibility cloak.

Conclusion

The hack is useful if you really need to track someone’s whereabouts – say your children or someone you really care about. Tracking someone without their permission may not be so ethical by the way.